News about the 4th edition of the Festival that will take place in Berlin all through the year 2008. The information about the former editions that were held on 22-26 november 2006, 13-22 february 2007 and 1-29 august, 2007 are still to be found somewhere in the jungle of this blop.

Saturday, August 04, 2007

10. August , Raum - Berlin Wedding

At Raum we start at 17.30 with the SecondLife version of the festival, organised and curated by Björn Eriksson. Almost five hours of virtual concerts can be seen and heard untill far after midnight.

Over the last weeks networking wizzard Björn Eriksson has contacted his sonic friends and managed to organise a festival parallel to the one taking place in the real world. His work consisted in finding the place in SecondLife: (the concerts will take place in a green house, but maybe not, because designing works are still in progress). In this way all sound collegues spread around the globe can come and visit and enjoy. Björn will de present in 3D lifeform at Raum to coordinate the virtual concerts. Some beamers will be set up to give a cinematographic impression of the concerts in the other world.

And then the lights will go out:

Three live acts will play from 22.30 onwards. Andreas Bick will present his radiophonic work Frost Pattern that he made for Deutschlandradio Kultur. I was lucky to hear the final mix of this composition in one of the studio's of Funkhaus Berlin over a five speaker surround system. Very impressive. And I am glad Andreas accepted my invitation. One can hear among others sounds from icebergs and gletschers, captured with an underwater microphone. All mixed together in a slowly evolving work of sound that has all the characteristics of an orchestral symphony.

I really don't understand why I have never seen Yehlin Lee perform in Berlin. It is thanks to Magnus Schaefer that I found him. I invited him and he said yes; it's that simple. And I am glad he did so. When he came to the second day of the festival and heard Debashis' happy tambouring, Wolfgang's tribute to Mozartian melancholy, and Yannick's singing Tibetat bowl, I mean after hearing sounds that in the FMradio world is actually called 'music', he was a bit surprised. He expected 'field recordings'. So i guess that is what we are going to hear on thursday in his soundwork TSU - L'Objet Sonore Trouvé.

In his own words:"Tapei Sound Unit - TSU focuses on the audition, collection, analysis, reflection, deconstruction, and re-contextualization of humanistic soundscape of Taiwan. With the total respect of sound object / soundscape, TSU tries to capture the spontaneous (extra)ordinary moments of real life."

Soichiro Mitsuya is one of my favourite noise artists in Berlin. Capable of scandalising the purist field recorders ear, he is one of the sonic artists that is 100% loyal to the original definition of field recordings.For his performances he always uses his little sony cassette walkman, that he carries around with him everywhere. He also had it with him when he visited Teheran earlier this year. It is sounds from that city that come to us in RAUM.

2 Comments:

At three o'clock in the night outside Raum in the Schwedenstrasse in Berlin Wedding I sat on a leather sofa, that was left there to rest and to be picked up by an anonymous treasure hunter. The police had just passed by. They came up with puzzled faces. Someone had complained about the volume. But they found the door open, a screen projection of a SecondLife concert by Adam Nash, and a soundbreeze carried by a soft voice that was hardly audible.

Little could they have known that an hour or so ago, Yehlin Lee had finished his set with orgiastic fireworks, that made some listeners leave the building with their ears tapped. But those fireworks were fantastic, as if hundreds of people were banging a giant drum in the sky. After the concert Yehlin explained why he didn't find interesting sounds in Europe, and told how thunderstorms could trigger all the car alarms in a Chinese town to go off.

Luckily they didn't find Soichiro Mitsuya walk around with a nervously flickering device that produced an equally nervous highpitched yelling singing sound. He walked around the place with it, as if he was looking for something. He had promised to bring sounds from Teheran. But after a long spoken introduction he pushed the button of the walkman, let it run for a while and said:"This is the sound of my washing machine." Then he pushed the play button of the second cassette walkman. And said:"This is the sound of my toilet." I thought: "O well." What followed were dancing noises, made by a guy who knows what he is doing.

It would have been equally a crime had the police interrupted disrupted and corrupted Andreas Bicks work 'Frost Pattern". Exclusively made from polar sounds he presented a glacial soundscape that brought honour to our planet. And proved that it is not only made of postcards and newsflashes. If you pay enough attention you will recognize that it doesn't need birds to hear a song. To the festivals luck and honour it took a young German to find the symphonic qualities of icebergs, gletchers and seals shooting through the water.

Yes, it had been satisfying and chaotic. Bjorn Eriksson had been coordinating the concerts in SecondLife since late afternoon. I had arrived in time from Staalplaat to catch Hars Heffermans cover of a David Bowie song, that consisted of a written story from the woods, a dream, bongo's and the sounds that came into his room from the streets. A welcome visit, be it virtual, but so very imaginative to a living room in Vincennes near Paris.

As allready mentioned the SecondLife part closed with a very long composition by Adam Nash. I will ask the sound file from Bjorn, because this was really a very intriguing piece, that reminded me of the narrating voices in 'Hiroshima mon Amour.'